


Possession

by bun_o_ween



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Ciel asks Sebastian to possess him so it's kinda... consensual?, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Possession, ciel is 18
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 13:29:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14570022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bun_o_ween/pseuds/bun_o_ween
Summary: Ah, to be young. And in love. And possessed by a demon.





	Possession

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings will update with each chapter.

Dark clouds rolled over the late afternoon sun.

A foreboding breeze rustled the gardens, the sprawling estate that Ciel could see from his study window. He pressed his fingertips to the cool, thin glass and watched a thick pile of leaves obliterate itself across the manicured lawn.

The gardener watched the pile flutter away, hands up in his hair as he opened his mouth – a shout Ciel couldn't hear through the glass. The young earl twitched his nose, watching the older man run after the leaves as if he could catch them.

Ciel exhaled, breath catching on the glass. There was a second, disappointed hum from behind him and Ciel turned to meet the sound. 

“What a fucking mess,” he drawled at his butler.

Sebastian narrowed his eyes and gave him a reproachful look.

“That type of language is below you, young master.”

Ciel swallowed, resisting the urge to curl his lip. He brushed back his hair, long enough to tuck behind his ear, and exhaled. The _clink_ of china was heard across the office as Sebastian began to prepare tea.

“Don't call me that,” Ciel said.

The demon behind him made a questioning sound and Ciel's nose twitched at Sebastian feigned innocence. 

“ _Young_ master,” he turned over in his mouth. “I'm eighteen.”

Sebastian said nothing, placing a fresh cup of tea onto a clean space on Ciel's desk. The rest was littered in papers, his duties only increasing with age. The sight made him weary and he continued staring out the window at the dancing autumn leaves instead.

Finny had given up his wild chase and now stood staring at the mess. If Ciel leaned forward on his toes he could see Bard too, pressed up against the stone exterior of the manor, smoking. His flame-thrower leaned unused by the wall. If the blonde had burnt the leaves an hour ago, _like ordered_ , they would not now be spread halfway between the Phantomhive manor and London.

Ciel felt a movement by his side and then his butler was beside him, staring down at the two, blonde servants.

Sebastian was usually the epitome of patience. His cool, alabaster face betrayed nothing. It was, after all, just a mask. But occasionally – as it did now, Ciel noticed a flaw. The twitch of his jaw. The thinly veiled expression of discontent. The demon seemed transfixed by the disaster below, eyes widening slowly. The orange leaves dotted the lawn as far as the eye could see.

“You're going to clean that up,” Ciel said, doing little to hide the smirk on the corner of his mouth.

His demon's eyes ignited , flicking down to his smaller master. In the last year Ciel had finally had a growth spurt – something he'd coveted since a child. While not as tall as his inhuman butler, the slender young man easily came to his shoulder, and no longer had to tip back his head to address him.

The demon narrowed his eyes. “Yes, young master.”

He stepped away from the glass as the sunshine was obscured behind the rolling clouds. A storm was brewing, but Ciel remained irked by the other's indifference to his title.

“Just master,” Ciel said again.

His cheeks flushed and he kept looking out the window so the other wouldn't see how embarrassed it made him to say. He wasn't a boy anymore. He was a man – _the earl of Phantomhive_.

Ciel glanced at the heavy ring that he now wore on the same finger his father had. His heart ached at the sight of it and he curled his hand into a small fist, concealing the gem from sight. On the finger next to it, a pale shadow where his engagement ring once sat.

Elizabeth had it now. She'd taken it back - just like she'd taken her heart, and her warmth away when Ciel had called off their engagement.

Sebastian waited, like the stoic, patient creature he portrayed, and Ciel finally came away from the glass.

“Can’t you do anything about them?"

Ciel nodded at the window, shaking with a gust of wind. He picked up his tea and a knot of tension left his shoulders at the touch of warmth.

“I can't change the fact that they are imbeciles,” Sebastian said.

He stood at the foot of Ciel's desk, arms behind his back. He spoke to Ciel but his eyes flicked back to the darkening window, obviously still bothered by the mess.

Ciel took the opportunity to look at his cheekbone, the perfect line of his nose. His Cupid's bow. His jaw line. His thick, charcoal eyelashes. The way his vest pulled firm against his –

He stopped. Ciel pressed his lips together and pushed the thoughts from his head.

“Can you not force them?” 

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, turning his attention back to the young man.

“Clarify for me, _master_.”

Ciel felt stupid at his own question. Staring down at the surface of his tea cup he gestured vaguely with his hand.

“Can't you..." He trailed off, waving his hand, "possess them?”

Sebastian made a soft sound that might have been a snort. Ciel curled his lip and sat back in his chair. Although his butler's face remained impassive, his eyes simmered in amusement.

“You want me to possess your staff, master?”

His lips might have quirked up, or it could have been the shadows playing with his face. Either way Ciel felt a lump form in his throat.

"Would it not be easier than constantly tidying their mistakes?" The boy said. "You could force them to do as you pleased. Even things they did not want to do."

Ciel pressed his knees together, his face warm. He could not meet the demon's eyes.

Sebastian blinked and Ciel was reminded that he didn't need to.

The blinking, the breathing – it was all for show. Little nuances that lulled others into believing Sebastian was a human. Ciel watched him exhale and the sight of it simultaneously thrilled and disgusted him.

“I think it would be more effort than it was worth,” his demon replied after a moment of thought.

Ciel frowned and finally sipped at his tea. The heat from rose from the cup and landed on his cheeks. The flavour bled across his tongue.

“But you  _could_  do it?”

There was no sound from either of them. Even the wind died down and Ciel flicked his eye up to the _thing_ in the middle of the room. His blinking, breathing imitation of a man.

“Yes master,” Sebastian replied. His eyes turned the colour of dried blood. “I could.” 

Ciel nodded, and sipped again at his tea. The rest of his afternoon’s work was wasted – mind now plagued with a million forbidden thoughts.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

Ciel noticed it when he turned sixteen.

One morning, as Sebastian unbuttoned his sleep shirt, his touch became unbearable. The sensation of artificial skin through white gloves was enough for Ciel's heart to crawl into his throat, and his knees to press together in excitement.

The demon, for all his acquired knowledge on the human condition, gave him nothing but a curious stare, and continued to unbutton his shirt.

After that, Ciel began to dress himself.

At the time, Ciel had chalked it up to inexperience. To the lack of touch. To hormones. To being sixteen and naïve, a virgin and – _well_. That wasn't entirely true.

There had been _that month_.

But since then there had been no one. Only his lonely, unskilled fingers to ebb away at the all-consuming lust. 

The boy exhaled as he padded back into his office. His feet had taken him there without explanation, to stand before the same window he'd looked out of before dinner. Now the view was glossy and black, and accompanied by the soft pitter-patter of falling rain.

Amongst the clear drops on the glass, the teenage Earl notice two pinpricks of red from the reflection of the door behind him. His chest seized.

“Master,” came the demon's low voice. “What's wrong?”

The tone of his voice spoke to a place just beneath Ciel's belly button. Somewhere that turned his blood to honey, and his limbs warm and pliable. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth, shaking his head slowly. _Everything was wrong_.

“It's nothing,” Ciel muttered.

With his eyes shut he could not see the red reflection of the man's eyes, staring at the back of his lying head. He did not hear him as he approached either, seemingly gliding across the carpet like a apparition.

 _Or a ghoul_ , he added, bitterly.

“Nothing?” The creature echoed, informal in privacy.

Ciel felt him exhale and it touched the back of his neck, warm and damp. Like a wild animal. He opened his eyes to see nothing in the reflection but the flickering lamp the butler held, and his illuminated eyes. Sebastian breathed again, and it raised all the hairs on the back of the tormented teenager’s neck.

“You don't have to do _that_ ,” Ciel grit.

He turned around to glare up at the disembodied eyes above him. The light readjusted and a nose came into view. And cheekbones. And a _mouth_. Ciel's eye lingered far too long.

“Do what, young master?”

Ciel jaw twitched at the title. “The breathing. You don't have to breathe.”

Sebastian laughed. The sound made Ciel's breath catch, and his knees weak. He could smell the candle burning inside the lantern the butler held, bright and flickering, and making the striking lines of the taller man's face seem even more handsome.

“The others would become concerned if I did not breathe,” Sebastian said, lips flirting with the smallest smirk.

Ciel ignored the way the hidden smile infuriated and toyed with him all at once. The butler leaned down, just enough that his whispering would be audible over the rain.

“Do you want them to know what I am?” He whispered.

His mouth came down close to the side of the boy's face and Ciel swore he stopped breathing all together. Sebastian lingered, reveling in how he suffocated the young human, and breathed purposefully against his skin.

“Do you want them to know,” he murmured again, “who _you_ are, or what you did?”

Ciel's heart sunk to the bottom of his chest.

The butler stood to full height away, one arm studiously behind his back as his unwavering second hand held the candlelight still. He waited patiently for an answer, without the good grace to conceal the wicked smile upon his lips.

“No,” the boy muttered, looking down. “I suppose not.”

Another mean, sub-vocal laugh. Ciel felt every part the chastised child, and he longed to smack the look off the other's maw. Once again he found himself staring at the taunting handsome mouth, and the way the other's chest rose and fell with fake, mimicking breaths.

“Are you sure there's nothing wrong, little master?”

Ciel didn't miss the purposeful placement of the word _little_. How insignificant Ciel already felt, standing before something so immortal, so beautiful, and – he stopped the train of thought again.

“There's nothing wrong,” he lied.

He brushed past Sebastian and towards the light of the hallway, hating the way the other refused to respond. How his eyes and face were impassive and uncaring as he asked about his master's welfare, like a machine. Like all his responses were just copied performances from the humans he observed. 

The teenager often wished he'd crack. That his illusion of perfect, patient butler would ebb away into the inky, black entity that Ciel had met that day. That he would act like the beast he really was. That he would follow through on instinct instead of reigning in his needs. _Wants_. Ciel wet his mouth and exhaled, flexing his trembling fingers.

It hurt the boy to think the demon felt nothing for him.

It hurt because Ciel was in love with Sebastian.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

It was still raining the next morning.

Ciel stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, eyes glassy. He could feel Sebastian downstairs. From the moment he woke up their connection was tangible. A hum he has felt since the contract. It existed in his fingers and his skin, and he felt It most behind his concealed eye. It grew stronger as the demon came upstairs, footsteps inaudible but moving down the hall towards the boy's bedroom. He slipped back under the covers before the door could open, avoiding the sight of his ugly, handsome demon.

“It's time to get up, young master.”

Ciel grit his teeth and rooted himself deeper into the mattress. _Young_. He clicked his teeth and wound himself tighter into his cocoon, drawing his coltish legs to his chest. He stared through a wrinkle in the bedspread, enough to see Sebastian's gloved fingers stir sugar into his morning tea. He wondered if the butler felt the connection too. He wondered if the demon could feel him move throughout the manor, and the exact moment he woke up.

Using his fingers, Ciel tugged more of the blanket back to stare at the man's face. With the grey, morning light coming through the rainy windows, Sebastian's skin looked like alabaster. His eyes were bright and busy, trained carefully on the young man's tea but no doubt deep in thought. As if he could read his mind, Sebastian glanced down and caught his eye. His lips pressed into a serious line and he sent a pointed look towards the hot tea he'd prepared.

“I'm not getting up,” Ciel mumbled.

Like a child. _Young_ , he muttered to himself. Sebastian tensed his jaw, back straight with discontent. Ciel reveled in the sight of it – because it was honest. Unlike the blinking or the breathing, Sebastian's annoyance wasn't put on. It was genuine. Ciel raised an eyebrow at the sight of him.

“You have work to do today,” Sebastian said, voice level.

Another trained response. Ciel rolled his eyes into the back of his head and took the blankets with him. The rain was pleasing and tender on the manor's roof and the thought of leaving his warm, comfortable nest broke the young man's heart. He twisted deeper into the layers of blanket and stretched out his legs.

“I don't want to do that,” Ciel groaned. Sebastian waited. “You can't force me to get out of bed.”

A beat. The rustle of linen as Ciel squirmed out of his knotted bedding, looking at the butler with wide, intrigued eyes.

“Or, can you?” He uttered, barely above the rain.

Sebastian played dumb. His eyes downcast as he flattened the page of the newspaper across the bedspread, eyelashes thick. Ciel stared at the bridge of his nose and waited, anticipation coiling low in his stomach. Sebastian ignored his desperate, hungry stare.

“Possess me,” Ciel blurted finally, reckless.

The way Sebastian's eyes flashed were a peek at the way the demon tried so hard to conceal his supernatural self. Ciel wondered, chewing his lower lip, what he would do if he couldn't control himself, or didn't have to. He wondered what Sebastian would do if the teenager was unable to order him to _stop_.

“You want me to possess you?” Sebastian finally spoke, very slowly. Like he couldn't believe it. Ciel knew exactly what he was thinking. Could see it reflected in his narrow, red eyes.

 _Pathetic, stupid human_.

He knew the demon could kill him. He didn't mind so much, not with the way he has felt as of late. Depressed. Alone. His shoulders ached with the weight of his past. The ghosts of his family. _His brother_. He knew he would die someday, and it didn't matter if it was now or in years to come. With a sad, tugging feeling in his gut, Ciel realised he didn't care how it happened. Just as long as it was Sebastian who did it.

He nodded his consent.

“Under what conditions?” Sebastian asked, as easily as he'd ask what flavour tea Ciel would like to drink.

The boy tilted his head and pretended to think it over, as if he hadn't obsessed over it since the moment he'd found out his demon was capable of removing free will.

“You can do anything you want,” he replied, ignoring how his cheeks darkened, and hoping he didn't look as desperate as he felt. He glanced up at the time and back to the demon. “Until six this evening.”

“Anything,” the demon repeated. Ciel swallowed, wondering if Sebastian could smell how pathetically turned on he was, or see the way his fingers clenched in the bedding. His heart yearned for the demon to snap, and consume him, and _touch_ him.

“Yes, anything. That's an order, Sebastian.”

He glanced up at the butler and his eyes simmered into a skin-crawling, unnatural fire-light. Ciel's heart caught in his throat and he watched the demon ebb away into the early morning shadows of the rainy bedroom. He could still see him smile, even as his eyes became all that Ciel could focus on. He could feel it. Sebastian's voice inside his head. _Little. Stupid. Transparent human_.

And then the window panes rattled with thunder, and the room lit up with electric light, and as everything went dark again – the young Earl lost consciousness and collapsed back into his bed.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

He woke feeling oddly alert.

A sensation of déjà vu washed over his body as his blinked at the ceiling. When he turned his cheek into the pillows he saw Sebastian standing there, in the same place as before. His eyes gave nothing away and his mouth was pressed into a silent, thin line.

Ciel frowned, sitting up on his elbows to give the butler a once over. He opened his mouth to speak but was suddenly forced back, head hitting the pillows again as his arms gave out and flattened down by his side. He gasped, staring at the ceiling again as he heard Sebastian laugh – _inside his head_.

“I can feel you,” Ciel mumbled, eyes wide. “Inside me.”

He tried to move his fingers but could not. His entire body was slack against the bedsheets and he couldn't twitch, or writhe, or escape. He might have been frightened, if not for the familiar hum working it's way through his fingers, and heartbeat, and soul. Like the connection between the contract symbols, only more intense. Deeper. More intimate. Ciel tried to ignore the sick, satisfying sensation of being completely helpless and pinned to his bed.

The butler said nothing. Ciel could feel his amusement in every fiber of him. Like he could feel everything the demon felt, like he could almost read his mind. He blanched. The demon laughed again and it felt _good_ , rumbling inside his chest.

“Can you read my thoughts?” Ciel panicked.

He narrowed his eyes at the butler and muttered inside his own head, _dumb dog_. The butler grit his jaw and tilted his head.

“Yes,” he said, tone clipped.

Ciel nodded slowly and tucked away that secret, guilty thing he hid. _His heart_. He tucked it down so deeply that he doubted even the demon would be able to dig it out. His fingers shifted on the sheets and he looked at his own hand, suddenly able to twitch his hand.

“I have some control,” he said dumbly, curling his hand into a ball.

He felt the way his action pulled against the power Sebastian held over him. Like a child tugging at his mother's apron strings. Benign and inferior.

“Only if I give it to you,” Sebastian reminded. 

And then Ciel was sucking in a startled breath as his body sat up from the bedsheets and he stood out of bed, utterly against his will. He tried to keep his face impassive but internally he shrieked. It didn't matter – now that the other could read his thoughts. He admitted to the both of them that the sensation terrified him. And then Sebastian made him walk across the room, entirely of his own accord. He stopped in front of his vanity and stared at his own reflection, lips slightly parted in shock.

“This is…” He trailed off, looking at himself.

His hair, a little longer now, was mussed from sleep. His linen sleep pants sat low on his hips and his fingers move to ghost over his stomach. He could feel when he had full control of his body, and when Sebastian tugged slightly at it. Like a dog on a leash. It was disgusting and thrilling. It was everything he wanted.

“It's not as bad as I thought it would be,” the teenager finished, flicking his eyes to Sebastian's reflection in the mirror.

He seemed placid with the effort of possession, silent and collected as he took occupancy in the teenager's mind and body. Ciel could feel his concentration thrumming deep inside his being.

Then the leash tightened, and he reached out to the vanity. He took a bottle of men's cologne from the glossy wood surface and, to his surprise, opened his mouth and sprayed the stinging, pungent mist into his mouth.

Ciel shrieked. His free hand slapped over his mouth and suffocated the sound from between his lips, mouth full of the bitter, violent acid of the cologne. His eyes watered as his sounds died against his palm, teeth bared as he fought the sudden nausea in his gut.

In the mirror the butler smiled, slowly but surely.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

Ciel had thoughts on what Sebastian might do to him.

 _Would he humiliate him? Hurt him?_ Ciel's visible eye wondered up to the stoic butler in the corner of his office and tried to stifle how his heart ached. Would he do _any_ of the countless things Ciel had dreamt of him doing? Things Ciel didn't dare to reimagine as he sat at his desk, sharing his mind with his terrifying butler.

Ciel's hand scratched the quill against the paper. He had no control over it. The words appeared in his lavish, neat handwriting, back and forth over the paper as the young Earl did nothing but watch. He could hear Sebastian muttering, low and indecipherable, but he knew he was concentrating. The boy couldn't even lift his head to send him a disgruntled stare.

His butler had possessed him into doing _paperwork_.

 _Sebastian_. 

He thought the word as hard as possible in his head but gained no reply. His hand continued to move, side to side. It paused to dip into the ink, and returned to loop a _g_ across the parchment.

 _Sebastian_ , he tried again. _This is boring._

His hand begun to ache and he lacked the simple will of being able to stop, and shake his sore fingers. This game has grown weary as the day grew long.

 _You said we could do anything_ , came Sebastian's quick reply.

Ciel inhaled at the word _we_. The butler returned to his quiet concentration, quill scratching in time with the rain outside. Thunder rumbled on the distant horizon.

“I thought you would do something more interesting,” Ciel said into the silent room, his own voice startling.

His hand stopped moving and a promising thrill played in the depth of his stomach. It quickly disappeared as his hand reached out to take the neat stack of today's mail from the corner of the desk.

“Something more interesting?” Sebastian echoed.

His voice sounded duller when spoken aloud, as if his energy remained at the opposite end of Ciel's marionette strings. Ciel exhaled as he took the weighted letter opener and begun to cut open the first envelope, much slower and refined than if he had done it himself.

 _Yes_ , Ciel thought.

He wondered if the demon could feel how painfully unamused he was. _How could this be any fun for him?_

“It isn't,” Sebastian replied – and Ciel remembered he could read his mind.

Then he was sitting up straight, letter opener firm in his palm, and he angled the blade down and stabbed it hard into his left thigh.

His scream was only internal.

Trapped in his throat. The blade burnt. The pain was unimaginable. Ciel could only stare at the tiny, silver knife, stabbed an inch into his thigh, as blood blossomed out and into the wool of his trousers. His hands shook of their volition. His mind shrieked. He could feel Sebastian's satisfaction like a hot weight in his gut, and the sound of his startled, heavy breathing as if listened from a different pair of ears.

“W-why would you do t-t-that?” He gasped, startled he could speak.

He felt as if he were about to be sick, staring at the bleeding wound as his body went into shock. There was nothing the demon could do about that, and suddenly the tension of their connection was lost, and the marionette strings were severed.

Sebastian stared as Ciel fell forward on the desk, little glass pot of ink toppling over and onto the paperwork he'd spent all morning scribbling. The black liquid seeped into one sleeve as he cried out, grabbing the handle of the letter opener and tugging it out of his leg. He screamed again when the end came out of his skin, hot and wet, and trailing blood down his pants and to where it fell on the desk top. 

“Oh, _God_.” 

Ciel stared at the cut on his thigh, trembling. His knees felt so weak that he imagined standing straight would cause him to faint. The wound wasn't very deep but it was enough to make the boy whimper. His fingers pressed over the cut and he felt the leash tug at him again, middle finger rubbing over the fresh wound and then dipping down inside the cut, hard enough to press the fingertip inside.

Ciel didn't scream at all. He flinched so hard he fell back, grabbing the edge of the desk as he fell down on his ass. He hit the floor with a thud, paperwork drifting down on either side of him. He was breathing heavy, pushing his hands up against his chest like he couldn't trust himself. He started to pant as he scrambled up onto his knees, leg throbbing, and eye narrowed and seething at the demon.

“You said _anything_ ,” the butler chided from behind him.

Ciel made a sudden, startled sob and shook his head, whipping around to stare at the man in a state of disbelief. Once more Sebastian did nothing but stare. He didn't have to smirk because Ciel could feel the expression inside of him.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

Ciel knew pain.

Being stabbed in the leg with a letter opener was not the worst of what he'd been through. Both he, and the demon occupying him, knew this. But as Ciel's own hand was forced to tug stitches through the red and tender flesh of his freshly wounded thigh, he was reminded that this was by far the most stupid thing he had ever done.

He didn't think the demon would stab him in the leg. He'd hoped he might – he stopped the thoughts and tucked them back inside that place he kept hidden. He steeled his heart and stared blankly at the mirror in the bathroom. _No_. This is exactly what a demon would do.

“Let me go now, Sebastian.”

His voice echoed up the high-walled bathroom. The butler kneeled beside the bath on which Ciel sat, his long and willowy legs bare and trickled with thin tendrils of caked blood. He dabbed at the wound when Ciel's hand tugged the stiches firm, pain shooting up his naked thigh and into his chest. It was agonizing, and he wondered if the butler suffered too. Sebastian sent him a sly stare, mouth curling up to indicate that a cut like this was nothing more than an insect bite to someone as powerful as him.

“It's not yet six,” he reminded, rubbing metaphorical salt into the wound.

Ciel's chest fell. He could still hear the rain falling outside and he listened to it, eyes closed as Sebastian pressed the liquor-soaked swab to his skin to clean the wound. His toes curled and he gripped the side of the bath until his knuckles went white. He refused to make a sound. The demon hummed happily inside of him.

“This is not what you wanted,” Sebastian said aloud, not a question. Ciel stared up at the bright ceiling and grit his jaw.

“It's not,” he agreed, voice shaking.

Why lie? Sebastian could hear everything. Well. Not _everything_. He swallowed, heart heavy.

“You shouldn't play with fire, master.”

Ciel felt a horrible, heavy misery settle in his gut as his leg was cleaned, and bandaged. His chest felt full with it. Plagued with a nostalgic, childish sensation of wanting to cry. He should have stayed in bed. He never should have agreed to this stupid game. His thoughts rabbited through his head and Sebastian laughed at every one of them, fingers tucking a butterfly clip flat to the boy’s bandaged thigh.

“I would have thought,” the demon continued, “that a little cut like this would be nothing for you. You are an adult now, isn't that correct?”

Ciel ignored him and stared hard at the ceiling, willing himself not to cry. He knew the demon could force him too, and yet he didn't. Because he wanted him to cry of his own volition. He wanted him to mortify _himself_. But Ciel refused.

“And yet here you are, ready to give up on our little game, only a few hours in.”

Ciel pressed his lips into a hard line. It didn't hurt because he'd stabbed him. It hurt because even with their entwined connection, Ciel felt nothing but disgust and amusement on the other end. He'd been so desperate to know what the demon really thought of him, that he hadn't been prepared to accept the possibility of being viewed as an insect.

“I can take more than a little cut,” Ciel blurted. It did nothing to ease the aching in his heart.

“Is that so?” Sebastian replied, voice dulcet in the bathroom.

Ciel felt the tether tighten and he was standing, dressing himself in new, unbloodied trousers. The floor was cold under his bare feet, tap dripping with the excess of water from the sink. The hum continued to tug at his nervous system as he met his reflection in the mirror and steeled his jaw.

“You'd have to do far worse to make me cry,” he promised, meeting the demon's eyes in the mirror.

The other stared intently enough that goosebumps prickled the back of Ciel's neck. His reflection remained so stationary that he looked like a photograph. The eerie sight set Ciel's heart to stone.

“Is that so,” the butler muttered again, pupils narrowing.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

The storm was far worse than it had seemed from inside.

The instant Ciel stepped into it he was soaked. The rain stung his cheeks as it landed it fat, stinging strikes, and he flinched at the bitter wind, catching in his jacket sleeves and whipping his hair across his face.

“Sebastian!” He screamed.

He moved with slow purpose out the open window, bare foot coming down onto the slick, wet tiles of the manor roof. From two stories up the ground was too dark to see. In fact, the teenager could see nothing below him but impending death.

“Sebastian, _stop!_ ” 

His voice was lost over the howl of the wind. His heart hammered in his chest, just as violent as the drumming on the window pane as he closed the latch behind him. In his bedroom Sebastian watched, eyes burning as the Earl stepped backwards and onto the sloped roof of the Phantomhive mansion.

 _Sebastian, this is an order!_ He cried inside his own head, rain cutting through his shirt and into his skin. _Stop! Let me back inside._

His pride crumbled like the tile under his bare foot, slipping free and tumbling down the roof. Ciel didn't even hear it hit the ground, not over the thunder that shook the manor to it's roots. He could picture it shattering though. Breaking into pieces like he surely would, if he lost his footing. His hands dug into the tiles.

 _I'm sorry for what I said, Sebastian._  

There was no reply. He howled out into the hammering rain, inching along the slippery tiles as his clothes became a deadweight on his back. Beneath his trousers, his thigh stung. He should have kept his stupid mouth shut. He should not have played with the proverbial fire.

_P-please, Sebastian. Let me go!_

He screamed. He could see nothing in the blackness. His face was whipped with angry rain, and his heart stopped as a brilliant bolt of lightning cut across the sky. Then the thunder rumbled once more, shaking the earth and the air, and sending Ciel into a quivering, flat line against the slope of the roof. He had no idea where he was going, only that Sebastian was forcing him to crawl along the fragile tiling of his manor's roof. He wondered if the demon had dug inside him to find out what would scare him most – because in this instant Ciel figured _nothing_ could be more terrifying.

His toes pressed into the gutter, and that's when he felt the tension cut. Distantly, beneath him, the clock chimed six.

He did not realise how lonely he could feel without the demon's constant presence inside his chest. And now, as he stood teetering on the edge of the manor's roof, so dark and rainy he could hardly see his own feet, he missed the familiar weight of it. He had never felt more isolated.

With a terrified, agonised, _pissed off_ scream, Ciel grit his jaw and begun to edge his way the back he came – this time in complete control of his body.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

Ciel found him in the kitchen.

He didn't have to look long. At six o'clock he was usually preparing dinner, and as Ciel forced open the heavy kitchen doors with a wheezing cough, he found him with his sleeves rolled up and his eyebrows raised. Playing the part of the concerned but faithful butler.

“You dog!” Ciel screamed, ignoring the audience of his blonde chef to rush forward and smack the demon as hard as humanly possible against his face.

He knew it wouldn't hurt him. He didn't care. The sharp, wet slap of it, and the simmering glare under the demon's artificial skin was satisfying enough. The force of it made the young Earl slide down to the tiles, rain dripping in a pool between his legs. His heart still thudded hard in his chest. His hair plastered over his cheek and neck. His demon's shoes were annoyingly polished.

“What's the matter, young master?”

His calm, perfect voice made Ciel grit his teeth. The sound of heavy boots squeaked on the wet tiles as his second servant came closer, a low whistle between his teeth.

“Jesus Christ,” came the rough, American accent.

The boots took two steps closer before freezing. When Ciel glanced up he saw his chef and his butler in a stalemate, eyes narrowed in suspicion at one another.

“What happened here?” Bard asked, jaw tense.

He darted his eyes down to Ciel's little body, the way his shoulders shook as he coughed. Then he glanced back at the butler. His fist coiled at his side. The demon's head tilted and he smiled, hand raised.

“The young master-”

“Shut up, Sebastian!”

He hated the sound of his trained and _fake_ voice. Hated how his eyebrows raised in surprise, acted the part of the concerned and faithful butler. Ciel forced himself up onto his knees, thigh aching. His cheeks burnt with the mortification of laying on the floor between two servants, but his rage fueled his actions. With his wet shirt sleeve he slicked back all his dripping hair.

“Bard,” he grit.

The chef came down onto his knees and into the pile of water the teenager had tracked into the kitchen.

“Yes, master?”

The blonde's hand came up to steady his arm and help him to his feet. His skin was rough and warm against his own. Ciel pressed closer to it, like a furnace. The front of the chef's shirt smelt like butter and herbs, and Ciel leaned into it until the touch met his cold, shaking chest. The servant’s other hand cupped the small of his back.

“Prepare me a bath,” he asked, speaking to the blonde.

He glanced over the man's arm and into Sebastian's eyes.

“Sebastian, you stay here and clean this,” he muttered. He flicked his eyes to the trail of water and twitched his nose. “Bard will prepare me for bed. You will not enter my bedroom tonight under any circumstance.”

He felt the blonde go tense against his chest, no doubt alarmed by the sudden switch in roles. It went ignored as Ciel stared dead into his butler's eyes and enjoyed the annoyance that flashed too quickly over his fake, concerned facade. 

“But young master-”

“That's an order,” Ciel snapped.

Bard's fingers tensed on the eighteen-year-old’s arm. This time the order stuck. The demon went rigid and he steeled his jaw, flicking his eyes down to the floor in subservience.

“Yes, _master_.”

And it was Ciel's turn to smirk.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

Bard looked entirely out of place in his bedroom.

The chef stood with folded arms, staring up at the ornate trim of the master bedroom. His simple shirt and trousers didn't match the delicate decor, and his heavy boots looked ill against the varnished floor. But the bed was turned down, albeit crookedly, and warm milk waited for the teenage Earl on the bedside.

“Thank you, Bard.”

He didn't normally thank his servants. He didn't usually have warm milk before bed anymore either, a habit he'd abandoned with his childhood. But tonight hadn't been a normal night.

The blonde cleared his throat and nodded, staring at the young Earl with little finesse. He did not belong here. It was obvious. He was nothing like his butler. If Sebastian was the moon than Bard was surely the sun. Big, and bright, and warm. Ciel treaded past the chef and to the warm milk by his bed, cupping the china mindfully in his palms. As he raised it to his lips, a foreign miasma caught his senses and he flicked his eyelashes up to the blonde.

“It's whiskey,” he announced, voice rough. Ciel stared and the older man cleared his throat. “My mother, she used to put whiskey in my milk before bed,” he explained. “To help me sleep.”

Ciel raised an eyebrow and pressed the cup to his lips, sipping the frothy cloud from the top. He closed his eyes at the taste, spiced and pleasant, and warm as it settled in his stomach and ushered a please sigh from between his lips. 

“It's good,” he sighed.

He licked the froth from the corner of his mouth and took another sip, tension in his shoulders unknotting as the evening ebbed out into fatigue. When he opened his eyes again he glanced at the door. Although closed he knew the demon was lingering outside. He could feel it, in the contract. A little smile curled onto his mouth as he felt the demon's displeasure in his blood, warm like the spiced milk. The butler never liked when someone else did his job for him.

Bard stood silently as he drank but Ciel could tell he was confused. His strong jaw was grit with questions. A permanent frown sat between his eyebrows as he helped to tuck the teenager under the thick bedding. Ciel stretched his legs against the mattress and felt his thigh throb dully. The bed was far too big for one person. The entire manor was too big for him. And his heart ached like his wounded leg. Bard watched the sad thought wash over his face and he finally spoke.

“I know it's not my place to ask, but I...” He trailed off, mouth half parted.

Ciel's fingers tugged at the sheets beneath his skin and he cleared his throat.

“I'm fine,” Ciel said quickly.

 _He wasn’t_.

The chef's too-blue eyes widened for a fraction and then he looked towards the door. Ciel glanced too, a lump in his throat. The candlelight jumped and flickered like the company he was about to lose. Ciel sat up on his elbows and cleared his throat.

“Bard?” The dark gave him courage.

“Yes, master?”

Ciel wet his mouth and stared down at where his hands lay on the bedding. His heart worked it's way into his throat and he stared at the door. He could even see Sebastian's footsteps treading back and forth along the floor. 

“Will you stay with me?” The teenager whispered into the dark room.

At first the chef did not reply. The jumping flame lit up the side of his face but Ciel was too shy to glance up. The butler stopped pacing outside. Once again the only sound was the steady rain. After what felt like an eternity, the chef rubbed the side of his stubbled jaw.

“Of course, master.”

And when he made no attempt to come closer, Ciel wriggled into the centre of the bed and finally met his eyes.

“Will you sleep beside me?” Ciel clarified. 

The blonde went rigid. Even the candlelight seemed to tame and simper to wait for the chef's answer. And when it came, Ciel felt Sebastian's overbearing presence shudder the foundations of the manor like the thunder rumbling outside.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

He had never fantasised about the blonde before, but when their skin met it was _electric_.

Ciel hadn't meant to touch him so eagerly. But when Bard had slipped under the sheets of his too-large bed and laid his head down in the pillows, Ciel had just reached out and touched. It was instinct. His hand came down over the other's chest and for a moment he was too stunned to remove it. He could feel the man's pulse under his skin. The heat of it. The tension of the situation.

Ciel swallowed and retracted his hand like it _burnt_.

In the dark he could see nothing. He could sense Bard's body though, broad and warm. His scent was comforting and Ciel leaned in slightly to smell it closer. When his nose brushed the side of the man's shoulder, they both flinched. The blonde's low, nervous laughter made Ciel feel warm in his stomach.

“It's alright,” the blonde mumbled.

It made Ciel swallow, nodding his head even though Bard could not see. The blonde shifted and pressed his nose into the boy's hair, and for a moment Ciel forgot there was anything wrong with the way he lay side-by-side with his servant.

“Bard?” He whispered into the night.

A deep sound came back in answer. Ciel turned his cheek so they would be face to face, despite the blinding darkness.

“Will you hold me?” He whispered.

His heart stopped in place. Another low noise came from the blonde's throat.

“Are you sure?” Bard whispered back.

Ciel wet his mouth and tried to swallow around the peach-pit lodged in his throat. He exhaled, shaky fingers crawling across the space between them until he could touch the front of the chef's shirt once more.

 _No_ , he said to himself.

He wasn't sure. But how could he have summed up in words the way he had craved human touch for the last eight years?

“Yes,” he said instead. 

And the bed linen rustled as the man sat up on one elbow. Ciel could feel how his sheer mass shifted the mattress, and how it dipped in the centre to draw Ciel in closer. He never been this close to a man before. _Not since_ – he coiled his fingers into his palm and breathed out.

“Turn over,” the blonde asked.

His much, _much_ larger hand nudged at Ciel's hip until he was facing the other way, heart jack-rabbiting in his chest.

And suddenly Ciel was pressing back into the all-consuming warmth of Bard's hard, hot chest. The chef's hands came to him easily, one arm draped over his stomach to keep him close, the other arm under his head. He could hear his pulse from where his ear pressed to his bicep. The hand on his stomach, the fingers splayed and unintentionally caught on his bare stomach, shirt rucked up from the squirming, and Ciel almost _moaned_.

His pulse raced from his fingers to his toes, and he could feel Sebastian too. His energy remained behind the closed door, pacing back and forth like a dog that had been locked out of the house. It made Ciel press further back against the sturdy chest, and curve his back, and those fingers curled around his hips and then, _ah_ –

Bard's cock pressed into the back of the teenager's thigh.

Ciel's tongue pressed hard to the inside of his cheek and he inhaled until his navel suckered under the chef's warm and calloused fingers.

“Bard?” 

He whispered again into the dark. The hot line of the blonde's flesh pressed warm and insistent into his leg as he waited for a reply. When it came, it was rough and raw.

“Yes, young master?”

 _Young_. It sounded different coming from his mouth. Filthy, even. From a man two decades older. It sent heat between the teenager’s thighs. His chest filled with bees as the older man tugged him back, just the slightest, so his nose pressed to the hair on the back of the young Earl’s head. _God_ , the touch made his head swim. Even through the fabric of their pants he could feel Bard _throb_.

He wet his mouth, turning his head towards the man until their eyelashes kissed. The little action made the blonde tighten his arm instinctively across his stomach.

“Goodnight, Bard.”

“Goodnight,” the blonde exhaled in reply, pressing his chest to the eighteen-year-old’s back.

And somewhere from behind the door, Ciel felt the demon growl like the dog he was.

……………………………………………………………………………

 

Ciel woke with a start.

The first thing he noticed was Bard was gone. He'd expected as much, and in many ways the boy was relieved. The empty space in the bed beside him didn't hurt any less, however.

The second thing he noticed was the _demon_ standing by his bed. He had no tea. No newspaper. Nothing but a indecipherable look on his face as he waited for the teenager to stir to full consciousness.

“What the hell do you-”

Ciel's words died on his tongue as a white, gloved hand pressed hard over his mouth. His skull was pressed back into the pillows as Sebastian descended down upon him, eyes flickering. The teenager flinched. He grabbed at the wrist pinning his head down and he _howled_ into the fabric palm – to no avail. The creature above him waited until his squirming stopped, and then it leaned in closer.

Ciel's eyes widened comically as the demon came down and sniffed his hair.

The boy smacked him. His arms. His face. Any part of him that he could reach. Open palmed smacks against any skin or tender place he could find, kicking his legs to try dislodge the terrifying thing from above him. He bucked his hips and thrashed until his butler finally let him go, leaving him a mess of rucked and wrinkled bedding.

“Did you just _smell_ me?” The teenager hissed, sitting up quickly on his elbows. 

The mere sight of the butler knotted his stomach into something not pleasant, but not horrible either. The other did not reply, his usually rust-coloured eyes flirting with an unnatural shade of red.

“He touched you,” Sebastian said, voice terse.

His nose wrinkled like he could still smell the chef upon the teenager's skin. The knot in Ciel's belly tightened.

“You saw him touch me in the kitchen,” he said back.

The way the butler slowly shook his head made a chill run up Ciel's spine.

“No. He _touched_ you.”

It was too silent. Even the rain had stopped. Ciel hated the look the butler gave him. The one that border-lined on spooky. It made his skin crawl and his fingers clench into the untucked linen. It was utterly horrifying, and an expression so akin to hatred that Ciel gasped when he finally realised what it was.

 _Possessiveness_.

The boy wet his mouth and struggled to meet the glare above him. Sebastian's inky hair seemed to move in the breeze-less bedroom. His shadow lengthened across the floor. The butler ceased pretending to breathe and blink and Ciel saw instantly that it was shocking. After everything, there was finally something. A look that was not annoyance, or amusement, or disgust.

_A look designed just for Ciel._

“Sebastian?” The boy asked.

His voice shook. The demon continued to stare, pupils small and black amongst the molten lava of his scalding stare.

“Possess me again.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come let me know what you thought on Tumblr (bun-o-ween)  
> And please smash that kudos button for something lucky to happen to you today! Good karma for a kudos! Gracias.


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